The former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency says the United States has to get serious about defeating radical Islam and is laying out a plan to do it – a plan he says is dependent upon Donald Trump winning the White House in November.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. General Michael T. Flynn is a frequent cable news contributor and spoke on behalf of Trump last month at the Republican National Convention. He is also the author of “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War on Radical Islam and Its Allies.”
In his book, Flynn it’s long past time for the U.S. to stop “participating” in the war against radical Islam and start winning it. He believes we’re just spinning our wheels while ISIS and other enemies pursue an announced, strategic campaign against the West.
“We totally have lacked imagination and we’ve forgotten how to win, actually,” said Flynn. “And we have to stop being politically correct about this enemy and we have to clearly define it.”
He says that’s something President Obama and subordinates like Hillary Clinton refuse to do.
“Number one is to clearly define the enemy and that’s something our current government and current president does not allow us to do,” said Flynn.
But what needs to be done to define our radical Islamic enemies that has not already been done?
“We have to discredit this ideology, this radical Islamist ideology, for what it is. We have to call it what it is and we have to begin to come up with a very imaginative, very creative information campaign to discredit it,” said Flynn.
Flynn says it must be a consistent, sustained effort, just as the U.S. labored for decades to attack the ideology of Soviet communism, its ideological flaws and its destructive results.
The general also says the U.S. cannot abandon the founding principles that make us strong.
“We have to get our own strategic house in order. We have to decide how we’re going to organize as the United States to begin to protect our way of life and not fear what our country was built upon, which is a set of Judeo-Christian values and principles,” said Flynn.
He says the Obama administration is taking exactly the wrong course.
“Instead, we have this politically correct nonsense. We spent 40 years calling the communists communists. When we talk about radical Islamists, you get chastised for being racist. We have to stop that. That’s unfair to the American public and it’s definitely not going to help us defeat this enemy,” said Flynn.
Although Flynn says the 2016 presidential race is one America cannot afford to get wrong, he believes it is essential to rein in the role the president plays on national security.
“The decision-making apparatus has been built up around the President of the United States is out of control. It doesn’t have the strategic flexibility. It doesn’t have the adaptability. It doesn’t have the speed and, frankly, it does not have the maturity to make the kind of decisions nor to even think clearly,” said Flynn.
“That’s why we get involved in places like Libya and we have poor decisions like getting out of Iraq in 2011. That’s why we see the messes that we see around the world right now in our foreign policy. I’m very concerned about that,” said Flynn.
Flynn is a registered Democrat but is outspoken in his support for Trump. He adds that his endorsement is almost entirely based on what he sees in Trump and is not simply a reaction to his opposition to Clinton. Flynn says Trump is running for the right reasons.
“He’s not doing this for Donald Trump. He’s doing this for the people of this country and for America. That’s the purpose. That’s why he dove head-first into the political cesspool that we have in this country to try to fix what we can to make this country great again,” said Flynn.
The criticisms of Trump on national security are legion: from his border security and deportation proposals to a temporary ban on immigration from nations with terrorist infestations. Others slam the GOP nominee for seeming to lack understanding of key global challenges and having no intellectual curiosity to learn about them.
Flynn says that is not the Trump he sees in private.
“He’s a great listener. He’s a rapid learner. He’s somebody who’s able to absorb lots of information quickly. He’s an exceptional decision-maker and problem solver. And he has great instincts for the types of people he has around them,” said Flynn.
Flynn asserts that Hillary Clinton’s honesty issues show she cannot be trusted as the next Commander-in-Chief. He says growing up as a military kid hammered the importance of honesty into his bones, a lesson he says the Democratic nominee has not learned.
“You told the truth – good, bad, ugly or indifferent. You accepted the responsibility and your punishment. She does none of that. I think we’re in a real world of hurt if the people of this country don’t get this election right,” said Flynn.
